President Barack Obama speaks during a press conference at the White House in Washington, DC, 14 January 2013. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

Obama's persona is so reliably cool and professional that minute fluctuations make news. Even his jokes are deadpan; his outrage never expressed with exclamation points but rather italics. And it might be disheartening to realize that the job of the White House press corps is to glean meaning from slight variations. It makes them theater critics as much as reporters, even if they can't exactly pan a performance containing emotions that, as Dorothy Parker once said of Katherine Hepburn's acting, "run the gamut from A to B".

Policy matters more than theater, but sometimes theater is a window into policy or at least motivations. The contrary attitudes and tones Obama displayed at Monday's press conference opened up a portal into the most contentious and talked-about issues of the day: the debt limit, gun control, diversity in his cabinet and – somewhat absurdly, surreally "meta" – his personality itself.

Obama opened with a statement on the debt ceiling that was merely confident: as the press conference progressed, that confidence soured into sarcasm. He has the popular will at his back on this one – as well as the 14th amendment. The House Republicans' petulance can only be explained by the fact that they are not worried about becoming more unpopular, and Obama rubbed it in. Reacting to a question about where voters will place blame should America default, "they're elected," he reminded them, "folks put them into those positions" – as close as the president can get to saying "nice little congressional district you got there, would be a shame if anything happened to it."

By contrast, looking at his own extended term, twice he reminded the press corps that, you know, he won the election:

"By the way, the American people agree with me."

Having finally come to grips with the futility of the metaphor war (his "dine and dash" riff a half-hearted last try), Obama got literal and final:

"We are not a deadbeat nation."

Rinse. Repeat. Ignore Republicans.

Compare this to his almost wistful response to questions about gun regulation, where he signaled willingness to compromise before even sitting down to the table: Obama included in his list of "responsible gun owners" "people who have guns for protection"; and he said "they don't have anything to worry about" when it comes to new legislation. In a general way, the imagined ideal implicit in the "responsible gun owner" caveat, and letting gun owners decide who's responsible, have been a part of the problem all along.

More specifically, casually including those who own guns "for protection" in the already-suspect class of "responsible gun owners" means you've taken off the table a whole class of regulations, as well as statistics: one study has found that "a gun kept in the home was 43 times more likely to be involved in the death of a member of the household than to be used in self-defense."

I know the president felt the tragedy at Newtown as deeply as anyone, but there was something wan about his invocation of the massacre. When he asked:

"Are there some sensible steps that we can take to make sure that somebody like the individual in Newtown can't walk into a school and gun down a bunch of children in a … in a shockingly rapid fashion?"

I had to wonder if there was a connection, perhaps subconscious, between a call for "sensible" legislation (by whose definition?) and the specificity of the president's expectation: not an end to school shootings, but perhaps a way of slowing the killing down.

Obama's swing between muscular offensive and detached defensiveness came through most strongly in the last question he fielded: an uncomfortable conjoined query that asked for a response to criticisms of his administration's lack of diversity, as well of his apparent lack of social graces. It was clear that Obama relished the chance to dismiss the latter with mocking one-liners as much as he trotted out by rote a familiar justification for the former.

Here, the transcript is instructive: he spent three paragraphs defending his appointment record; then there are nine paragraphs of an admittedly entertaining groove about his social calendar. (Though even here, it's his innate reserve that allows him to joke about "liking a good party". Bill Clinton, and George Bush for that matter, could not afford such candor.)

Nine paragraphs about his likability, and the evocative image of the president wandering the empty halls of the White House, looking for someone to play cards with … but nothing in those closing remarks said as much about Obama's personality and attitude toward policy as his tone on these most important issues. When confident, he is jocular, assertive and light on his feet; when in less certain waters, he retreats into compromise.

Of course, it is difficult to talk about either gun violence or gender equality with buoyancy. Even more to the point, the issues are more intractable and yet also less urgent – and mistakes are perceived to be more politically costly. So, on both, Obama seeks to let the clock run.

And no wonder, throughout his administration, Obama has yet to pay a cost for political inaction – on anything. Guantánamo Bay, extra-legal assassinations, immigration: arguably, he dragged his feet on gay rights until it became clear that major donors might withhold cash badly needed for his 2012 run. I can't in good faith argue that he should pay a cost, either – not while Republicans offer such an unpalatable alternatives. This is the price progressives, and perhaps the country, pay for our unquenchable desire for polarity in electoral choices: everything is good versus evil – until someone actually wins and then everything turns gray. This is probably the reality of governing, and what makes us turn away from politics until it gets colorful again.

On diversity in his cabinet, Obama said:

"I would just suggest that everybody kind of wait."

The platinum coin will probably not be minted, but if the amusing question of who should be on its face can be settled, I have an idea for what the motto on the other side should be.

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